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To say the guys at Telltale are geniuses is pretty accurate, if not a massive understatement. They’ve achieved some incredible stuff over the years with The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, with a few minor missteps along the way with the Michonne miniseries for example, which even then wasn’t that bad. I’ve been a massive fan of Telltale’s work since the Walking Dead originally came out, I’m also a massive nerd for Batman, so naturally, excitement got the better of me when I learned that Telltale were developing their very own Batman game similar to the fashion of their other titles. Does episode 1 show promise for the next 4 episodes to come, or does it simply use the caped crusader in a struggle to please its fans. I’m glad to say that for the most part, Batman: The Telltale Series Episode 1: Realm of Shadows is looking to be one of Telltale’s best pieces of work yet.

The colour of Batman’s gadgets can also be changed, making for a more personal experience.

Crime Fighter, Detective, and Entrepreneur

Set during the start of Bruce Wayne’s attempt to make Gotham a safer place, Realm of Shadows follows the story of a troubled Bruce Wayne solving crime, influencing politics, and still dealing with the death of his parents. Realm of Shadows does a fantastic job at establishing various characters like Vicki Vale and Jim Gordon, characters are easily likeable, or quite the opposite in the case of a villain. Convincing voice performances are everywhere, and Troy Baker does a good enough job as the Dark Knight, although I can’t help but feel it can be a lot better. Key choices are tense, I often felt like whatever I said could potentially end in consequence, and moments of immense pressure had me panicking. Who knew something as simple as choosing whether or not to shake a hand could be so intense?

Combat is fairly standard for a Telltale game, it’s purely pressing the right buttons at the right times. It’s definitely fun to watch but don’t expect any Arkham-like combat here. One thing that really surprised me was the detective aspect of Realm of Shadow. You have to look for evidence and piece together what happened using logic chains. It’s refreshing, intriguing, satisfying, and extremely enjoyable to finally piece everything together. Last but not least, visuals and performance are fairly standard for a Telltale game. It uses the same trademark cel-shaded art style and looks all the better for it. Gotham is captured perfectly with this art style, and it brings out the sort of beautiful grittiness found in Gotham. I hadn’t experienced any crashes throughout my experience, but I did experience frame drops fairly often, which was quite annoying.

The Batcave is extremely high-tech.

Verdict: 8.5/10

Realm of Shadows does a fantastic job at starting up Telltale’s next series. I thoroughly enjoyed my experience with Realm of Shadows from start to end, I’m incredibly excited for the rest of the series to come out, and I’m definitely going to go through again to make different choices. If you’re a Telltale fan, buy this game right now, trust me, it’s more than worth it. For those who are curious, it took me just under 2 hours to finish Realm of Shadows, which is fairly long for Telltale.

Positives

-Likeable characters

-Pressuring choices

-Detective segment

-Well-captured Gotham City

Negatives

-Frame drops

Thanks for reading guys! Up next is No Man’s Sky which should be up in few weeks or so. Harry.

The second episode of Telltale’s The Walking Dead: Michonne, further explores Michonne’s dark past as it once again catches up to her. The problem is that while in the process of constructing Michonne as an incredibly deep and interesting character, other characters and the overarching plot are left behind. Michonne’s daughters still haunt her, and the flashback sequences in episode 2 are just as interesting as they were in episode 1. I seriously cared about Michonne through the entire episode and it’s really nice to see that Telltale are doing her character justice. Episode 2 picks up immediately after where episode 1 finishes, and I won’t explain that just to avoid spoilers. From there, the plot is fairly predictable, which is disappointing, but at least some of the characters are developed to a degree. I was genuinely stumped once or twice on the choices I was confronted with, and I found myself wanting to go back in order to see what would happen if I chose the other options. The combat sequences in episode 2, are thankfully just as good, if not better than episode 1’s combat. It’s intense, the choreography is amazing, and Michonne looks like a complete badass when slashing and hacking through walkers, and I was really pleased to see one particular feature at the start of the episode, but I won’t spoil what that is. The episode does finish quite strongly, and I’m really looking forward to the release of episode 3 next month. Give No Shelter only took me a little over an hour to finish, which is shorter than In Too Deep, but I felt like it went for the right amount of time.

Episode 2 picks up straight after the end of the first.

Verdict: 7/10

Telltale are doing an incredible job of fleshing out Michonne’s character. She’s proving to be more and more interesting with every episode, which is just what fans want. Awesome combat sequences and fan service make it a memorable episode, however, the fairly predictable story and underdeveloped supporting cast holds Give No Shelter back from becoming the saving grace of In Too Deep. I sincerely hope episode 3 can fix this, and that it keeps doing what all the other episodes have done right.

Positives

-Michonne is an incredible, deep and interesting character

-Amazing combat sequences

-Episode finishes strong

Negatives

-Supporting cast feels underdeveloped

-Predictable story

Thanks for reading guys, Hyper Light Drifter is up next, followed up by Dark Souls III in a few weeks! Thanks again for reading guys – Harry.